Smashed windows and arrests: Haredi demand for woman to sit at back of bus gets out of hand

Beit Shemesh police called in after row spirals on Egged bus.

Haredi bus 370.
(photo credit:Marc Israel Sellem)

Religious conflict returned to Beit Shemesh on Wednesday, with extremists
perpetrating violent incidents on two separate buses after more than a year of
relative quiet in the increasingly ultra- Orthodox city.

Around noon on
Wednesday, police detained an ultra- Orthodox man who demanded that a woman move
to the back of an Egged bus that was headed to Bnei Brak.

In addition to
the haredi man, police also apprehended a haredi woman for causing a public
disturbance.

Shortly afterward, the police reported that haredim had
thrown stones at three buses in the city.

Two people were arrested for
causing a public disturbance with regard to the stone-throwing, police
said.

According to Beit Shemesh Corner, a local news website, when the
417 bus to Jerusalem pulled into a stop, four men blocked the bus from leaving
while three others broke the windows with “a hammer that is commonly found on
buses to smash open windows in case of an emergency.”

Egged spokesman Ron
Ratner confirmed the report, telling The Jerusalem Post that members of an
“extreme haredi group” attacked the 417 bus from Ramat Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem
and “broke the windows... with a hammer.”

Egged takes discrimination
against women and the act of “forcing them to the back of the bus” very
seriously, Ratner said. “The Beit Shemesh police are investigating the matter,
and we at Egged expect that they will get the ruffians and criminals and bring
them to justice.”

According to Yediot Aharonot, while the haredim did
request that the woman move to the back of the bus, she moved freely and of her
own accord.

The woman in question told the Hebrew-language newspaper that
the driver and the police “were making a big deal out of nothing,” and she
seemed to disapprove of the arrest of the couple who had asked her to
move.

Beit Shemesh has largely been quiet since violence peaked in late
2011, when extremists held daily protests outside the national-religious Orot
Banot school, spitting on young girls and calling them “whores.” But the
situation has the potential to deteriorate once again, a source affiliated with
the local police told the Post.

Citing the increase of violence against
haredi soldiers, he said that the police now “are looking out more and more for
haredi-on-nonharedi violence.”

Much of the violence in Beit Shemesh has
originated from Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, a hassidic neighborhood situated between
the more moderate haredi neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef and the
national-religious neighborhood of Sheinfeld.

Several incidents of
violence against women in Beit Shemesh were recorded last year, including an
attack on Vered Daniel, a mother who had stones thrown at her while she was
trying to buy a baby carriage, and who was saved by local haredi women who came
to her aid.

The rabbinic authorities in Beit Shemesh do not approve of
violence, said Yaakov Haber, the rabbi and spiritual leader of the Kehillas
Shivtei Yeshurun synagogue in Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef.

“Anyone who
[perpetrates] violence is not endorsed by anyone, and there is not one rabbi or
leader in the haredi community who endorses violence,” he told the Post. “I have
personally spoken to every single one who is a legitimate
leader.”

Despite what seems to be widespread opposition to violence,
however, there has not been a significant public outcry against
it.

During the height of the violence surrounding Orot Banot, several
national-religious rabbis circulated a petition among their ultra- Orthodox
colleagues condemning the use of violence, but most of them refused to
sign.

The signatories “included only rabbis on the edge of haredi
society; more mainstream haredi rabbis refused to co-sign it. I don’t believe
for a moment that they support the violence, but they are not willing to openly
protest it,” local rabbi and blogger Natan Slifkin told the Post last
year.

Among those who declined to condemn the extremists officially was
Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz, rabbi of the Beis Tefilla synagogue.

In an email
exchange that community activists reposted on the Internet, Malinowitz explained
that he declined to sign “because I will not be meshatef pe’ula [a collaborator]
with people that I hold have a definite anti-haredi agenda here, loving every
minute of this, and painting all ‘haredim’ with the same brush.”

He added
that “to my mind, this is like demanding that every Italian condemn bank robbery
after the Mafia pulls off a job. That every Russian condemn murder after the
Russian Mafia has someone killed.”

Yoni Sprecher, a longtime
national-religious resident of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef, told the Post that he
believed that “most haredim here are too afraid of the crazies, [and] so are
their rabbis.”

The Tov party, a local movement representing the moderate
haredi community, issued a statement to the Post condemning the violence and
welcoming “the rapid police operation against rioters.”

“We see a great
need for dialogue, but using violence loses one his place at the table,” a party
spokesman said.

Local activist Nili Phillip told the Post that while the
police response was heartening, “the Beit Shemesh Municipality has yet to issue
a public statement condemning harassment and violence against women in the
city’s streets, nor has it made any effort to remove the public and illegal
signs that discriminate against women.”

This “negligence,” she said,
“only encourages the extremists to continue their attacks on
women.”